U.S. Stocks in Broad Decline as Focus Shifts to Europe

Nichole Harper
11 Feb, 2013
New York City

Stocks and indexes on Wall Street traded lower after the broad S&P 500 index registered sixth weekly gain last week. President Obama is scheduled to release his legislative priorities on Tuesday. AMR and U.S. Air are likely to finalize their merger plans as early as next week.

[R]11:10 AM New York – Stocks and indexes on Wall Street traded lower after the broad S&P 500 index registered sixth weekly gain last week. President Obama is scheduled to release his legislative priorities on Tuesday. AMR and U.S. Air are likely to finalize their merger plans as early as next week.[/R]

President Barack Obama is scheduled to release his administration’s legislative priorities in the first State of the Union address on Tuesday for his second term.

President is likely to focus on gun control, immigration reform and avoiding automatic spending cuts.

Senate Democrats are working on their plan to avert automatic spending cuts and tax increase. Democrats are likely to propose $120 billion plan with an equal mix of spending cuts and tax increase.

European markets traded higher as leaders in the region gather to discuss the rising euro and decide when to release the bailout to Cyprus. The International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde will attend the meeting as well.

G-20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs are scheduled to meet in Moscow February 15-16.
Italy is scheduled to elect the next premier at the end of next week and Cyprus is also set to finalize its presidential election.

Markets in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and in South Korea were closed to celebrate Lunar New Year holidays. Markets in Japan were closed to celebrate National Foundation Day.

Stocks in Review

AOL Inc ((AOL)) soared 7% to $36.95 after analysts at RBC Capital Markets revised the company outlook and cited strong revenue growth trend and room for valuation to grow.

Apple Inc ((AAPL)) gained 1.5% and extended gains for the third day on the news that the company is evaluating a wearable watch-like device with some of the functionalities of a smartphone.

Charles Schwab ((SCH)) declined 1% after analysts at Citigroup lowered the outlook on the stock and cited recent company presentation showed lack of catalysts for the 2013 operating earnings leverage.

Google Inc ((GOOG)) declined 0.9% after the Internet search engine operator’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt said in a government that he plans to sell his stake valued $2.5 billion over the next year as he plans to lower his holding by 40%.

Loews Corporation ((L)) dropped 1% or 47 cents to $43.41 after the insurance company stated total revenues in the fourth quarter ending in December advanced 7% to $2.44 billion from $2.29 billion in the same period of last year. Net loss in the quarter swung to $32 million or 8 cents per diluted share compared to net income of $271 million or 68 cents a share a year ago

Novo Nordisk ((NVO)) dropped 12% to 940 kroner after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested more tests and data for its insulin Tresiba. The new requests could delay the drug for several years.

Sanofi SA, the competitor of Novo Nordisk and the maker of Lantus insulin increased 4.4% to 72.05 euros.

Radian Group Inc. ((RDN)) declined 3.2% or 22 cents to $6.48 after the mortgage insurance company said total revenues in the fourth quarter ending in December declined 38% to $226.1 million from $364.6 million in the same period of last year. Net loss in the quarter widened to $177.3 million or $1.34 a diluted share compared to $121.5 million or 92 cents a share a year ago earlier.